Should lfr be 40 man?

[Tziva]

that leads to another question. IF your class has the ability to heal or tank, and you choose DPS, should be penalized (or should pure dps classes, mage/lock/hunter, etc) be given preference in queues?

No.

You're already "rewarded" for choosing a heal/tank role with a shorter queue. You don't need to penalise people who want to DPS more than their enormous queue already does.

Besides, on a practical level, do you really want [even more] DPSers who have no business tanking or healing trying to do so in your raid to avoid penalties? Groups are bad enough in LFR, we don't need that too.

[Deleted]

Humm, did so many of you lagg during vanilla raids too :O? Or running the same setup as back then maybe :P?

[MoanaLisa]

LFR as a 40-man thing? No.

One or two scenarios for world bosses as a 40-man thing? Bring it on.

[Deleted]

I don't understand what you mean by "the same 100k." Do you mean that, instead of an AoE that "deals 100k damage to each player in range," you'd change the mechanic to "deals 2,500,000 split among all players in range?" This would result in damage that ramped up during a fight if any members of the raid died, which I do not think is an ideal outcome.

Instead of 100k per player, it'd be 62.5k per player, resulting in the same amount of overall damage.

[bals]

You'd have to increase the number of healers a little bit, just to cover the additional bodies. Healing in LFR may be easy, but heals still have a cast time and it still takes X amount of time per-character for one healer to provide a heal.

The trick would be to increase the healers but not in the same proportion as you'd be increasing DPS, so the ratio would still positively impact DPS queues.

IDK healers have tons of aoe heals now and on most fights people tend to stand really close to each other. Some dps classes like shadow priests do decent healing as well. I'd say maybe up to 8 healers if any increase at all.

That's my thoughts. You jsut increase the hit points of the bosses, without increasing the damage dealt by them. no need to increase the number of tanks needed, as mechanics would stay the same.

increase the number of tanks otherwise tanks will have outrageous queue times (I had some really long tank queues in tot). Also LFR tanks die all the time so having an extra one or two isn't that bad of an idea. Although the queue time issue might not be such a big deal anymore since no one wants to tank anymore

[Tziva]

Humm, did so many of you lagg during vanilla raids too :O? Or running the same setup as back then maybe :P?

System requirements have gone up significantly since classic. Spell effects have also gotten a lot flashier.

I didn't lag in classic and I wouldn't now, but I'm not exactly representative of the super casual gamer who might be found in LFR. Some of those people really might be using the same computer they had in vanilla!

[Daetur]

Instead of 100k per player, it'd be 62.5k per player, resulting in the same amount of overall damage.

So you'd be ok with nerfing content by 40%? There isn't going to be a mechanic left that can actually kill someone.

[Deleted]

System requirements have gone up significantly since classic. Spell effects have also gotten a lot flashier.

I didn't lag in classic and I wouldn't now, but I'm not exactly representative of the super casual gamer who might be found in LFR. Some of those people really might be using the same computer they had in vanilla!

I suppose so, but damn, time to do an upgrade id say... O.o

[hablix]

Sure, increase to 8 healers, leave it to 2 tanks. That's 30 DPS. Sounds good, assuming that increasing DPS slots will improve queue times. As far as healer ratios, that's 1:5 vs. 1:~4.2 currently, and 1 per group. Aren't tanks the reason queues are so long anyway?

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So you'd be ok with nerfing content by 40%? There isn't going to be a mechanic left that can actually kill someone.

Is that really a problem in LFR? I think people looking for a modest challenge would be better served by Flex mode. Very few people queue for LFR looking for a challenge. Not that they necessarily dislike to be challenged, but rather that facing challenges with matchmade groups that have no comms, leadership or anything else is not something that many people are looking for out of LFR.

EDIT: Potential problem, more slots = more AFK'ers and even less reason to contribute. I want to say however that the problem is so horrendous as it is that I can't imagine it getting much worse.

[Baine]

No way, I barely see the boss at times with all those spells animations.

[hablix]

No way, I barely see the boss at times with all those spells animations.

Yeah I think some more work needs to be done to tone down spell effects from other players' spells at least. I had no problem seeing things in classic despite the extra 15 players so it can be done.

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Another suggestion I've seen elsewhere on MMO-C is to re-tune LFR into 25-man scenarios. Say SoO LFR worked like this and you could run each wing once a week for Valor and a bag like any other scenario, that has a chance at containing ilvl 540 loot. Instead of being tuned around the trinity it would be more or less a zerg where tanks and healers could be beneficial but not required. Here's what I come up with:

1. The chance at 540 loot would make it more worthwhile for Flex/Normal raiders than LFR currently is, and only having one chance at a 540 piece per wing per week would keep people from gearing up too fast with it
2. The zerg format would be more fun for the F/N raiders who just want to get it done and over with for the week without wiping repeatedly with matchmade groups, while not being overly difficult for novice players
3. Players looking for a modest challenge but ill-equipped to run Normal or Heroic raids have Flex raids which are better suited for this gameplay goal
4. Novice players, non-raiders, or anyone else who otherwise doesn't wish to participate in organized raids through Flex or above still have the opportunity to experience the raid and see the bosses
5. Significantly reduced queue for ALL specs
6. One less tier of gear to itemize for, perhaps help combat ilvl hyperinflation

What would be the downsides to this? Can't think of any major ones but wonder what others think.

PS: I'm no anti-LFR elitist. I played LFR exclusively until 5.4 and have always been a big supporter. However, while it's a little early for a postmortem, so far it appears that Flex has changed things so dramatically that something will have to give eventually.

[Belloc]

That's my thoughts. You jsut increase the hit points of the bosses, without increasing the damage dealt by them. no need to increase the number of tanks needed, as mechanics would stay the same.

You'd actually have to decrease the damage if you wanted to simply add more DPS. As it is, the amount of healers currently brought in to LFR are meant to heal up the amount of DPS currently brought in. If you add more DPS without decreasing damage, that's more healing required and, thus, more healers required. 5 healers might be able to handle 18 DPSers, but they'll have a significantly more difficult time healing 33 DPSers.

This is all moot, of course, due to issues of framerate and lag.

[Terahertz]

I'd rather have LFR be 10 man tbh. Or give us the choice :/

[Airwaves]

I would say yes. But even with a GeForce 770 my fps goes down to about 40 in 25 and it is a massive card. 40man would just kill most peoples computers with all the modern spell effects. Not to mention how much more detailed armor is then when 40 man raiding was a thing.

[Vokal]

i generally think all raids should be 40 man. I don't think 10 or 25 people count as "raids" as far as the blunt definition is concerned. But since we do have 10 and 25 man raids, we should have 10 and 25 man lfrs too. I dont really think we should have 40 man lfrs in a game with 10-25 man normal modes and flex modes. If i had it my way though we'd have 40 man lfrs, 40 man flex raids, 40 man reg/heroic modes.

[smartazjb0y]

Makes you wonder how people ran 40mans back in 2004.

But, if 40 mans ended up being like 2 tanks, 9 healers and 29 DPS, I feel like that'd alleviate the queues a bit.

8 25mans and 5 40mans have the same number of total players (200), but 8 25mans would require 16 tanks and 48 healers. 5 40mans would require 10 tanks and 45 healers. I definitely feel like that'd help with the queues, especially with the tanks.

[judgementofantonidas]

many players have very crappy boxes.

even more will run out of pain meds long before they complete a 40 man Looking for Retards.

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I would say yes. But even with a GeForce 770 my fps goes down to about 40 in 25 and it is a massive card. 40man would just kill most peoples computers with all the modern spell effects. Not to mention how much more detailed armor is then when 40 man raiding was a thing.

I have one of those as well. the only time that it bogs down is when there are cross server players in a raid for some odd reason. every time one joins or leaves the raid i get a stutter.

your issue is more likely with addons or memory.

[Deleted]

I'd rather have LFR be 10 man tbh. Or give us the choice :/

and what if in that 10 man group, you get the 1 healer who is always afk and the 3/4 dps who are always afk? good luck completing that raid

[vindicatorx]

No, no way in hell it's bad enough with 25 of these people no way on earth I want to deal with 15 more of them.

[jbombard]

If you increase the number of DPS you also need to increase the number of healers to heal them.

The reason queues are so long probably has more to do with other factors. One being the lack of a real catchup mechanism, means you have people spread out over a variety of wings. Another is that the way loot drops work even if you are all caught up to the most recent tier you stop needing to run certain wings based on what drops you get and that differs from player to player. Whether or not a wing has many good drops for a healer will have a very strong influence on how quickly healers move past and stop queuing for that wing. Another is that some wings are unpopular due to difficulty.

If you could get players focused on queuing for the same content many of the queue length issues would go away.